This post is about 5 common practice mistakes piano students make, and how to avoid them! Read on for the blog post, or click here to watch the video.
As a professor of piano with decades of teaching experience, I have worked with a lot of piano students by now! One of the most important things students can learn is HOW to practice and use practice time effectively.
Mistake No. 1: Practicing at the Wrong Speed
The first common practice mistake piano students make is practicing at the wrong speed. Often, students practice much too quickly, or much too slowly.
Practicing too quickly doesn’t allow the brain and hands to fully process the notes and retain them effectively. Practicing too slowly and without musical nuance, on a part you can already play, is not a productive use of practice time.
If a section is easy and you can already play it effortlessly, then don’t waste your time practicing it extremely slowly, and instead isolate and work on the parts that are actually challenging. Practice it well, to bring it up to tempo – or to a faster tempo – and then put it back together with the section that you can already play.
With self-awareness, you’ll be able to find the the right speed to practice for whatever it is that you’re working on.
Mistake No. 2: Not Listening
The second common practice mistake piano students make is not listening. In order to improve your ability to actually listen to the sound coming out of the piano, you need to cultivate the habit of BEING PRESENT when you practice, and engaging with the sound you produce.
When you practice, don’t allow yourself to play with an overly harsh or an overly weak sound. Listen to every sound that you produce at the instrument. Get in the habit of asking yourself, “What is the quality of my sound? Does it match the sound I imagine in my head? Is it even from one note to the next? What do I need to change in order to produce a better sound?”
This habit will lead to more attentive practicing and an improvement in the quality of your sound over time.
Mistake #3: Adding Expression Later
The third common practice mistake piano students make is adding expression later. Often I find that piano students focus on playing the correct notes and the correct rhythms, but then they ignore everything else written in the score, with the plan to go back and add expression after they already know the piece.
The reason it’s not a good idea to wait to add expression is because if you learn the piece one way, and then later on decide you’re going to add dynamics, shaping, articulation and expression, you’re going to have to retrain your hands and fingers to do things differently. That means you have to, in essence, learn it twice, which is inefficient and can lead to feelings of frustration.
If a composer doesn’t have dynamics written in the score, that doesn’t mean not to do dynamics. It means that the composer is expecting you to shape and do phrasing based on your understanding of the style and your experience as a musician.
Mistake #4: Waiting for Inspiration to Strike
The fourth common practice mistake piano students make is waiting for inspiration to strike. If you want to progress at your instrument, it’s important to show up every single day, regardless of how you feel.
Don’t wait until you’re in the mood to practice, but instead let it become an automatic part of your life. Otherwise there is the tendency to procrastinate, because there are always going to be other demands on our time.
Mistake #5: Not Using Music Theory
The fifth common practice mistake piano students make is not using music theory. Music is its own language, and music therefore has its own syntax. That syntax is what we call “music theory.” Music theory helps explain how chords and intervals all work together to create the “inner logic” of the language of music. The better you understand that, the better you’re going to be able to to understand a piece as you’re learning it.
If you know music theory and you therefore know what chords you’re playing and where you are in the piece, that helps create a roadmap of the piece so that you understand where you are in the piece and can anticipate where you’re going next. This is invaluable to effective learning and performing.
Resources
One key aspect of functional music theory that is especially helpful to pianists is a thorough understanding of intervals. I like this series by Keith Snell, and I like this free website to drill and practice your interval recognition.
If you want to go deeper, I recommend Piano Marvel, which is a subscription program that has a terrific curriculum for music theory as well as excellent sightreading exercises. You can use my affiliate link for a small discount.
Watch the Video Here
